


Every Planet We Reach is Dead

by umechaw



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Bickering, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Found Family, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, She's hoping it isn't obvious, The Captain has no idea what she's doing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:34:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26175787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umechaw/pseuds/umechaw
Summary: At first, she hates fucking his guts. And it's on principal, she thinks. She's about as empty as the seventy long years she spent unconscious and hurtling through space and by the time she has two feet on this backwards colony she has no patience for a proprietous, preachy asshole. And she'll keep telling herself that.
Relationships: The Captain & Parvati Holcomb, The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	Every Planet We Reach is Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Captain Dot has the opposite of a saviour complex.

_I lost my leg like I lost my way_   
_So no loose ends_   
_Nothing to see me down_   
_How are we going to work this out?_

_\- Gorillaz_

**chapter one**

* * *

Edgewater doesn’t look kindly to newcomers. Edgewater doesn’t really _look_ at all. If it’s a marauder, the guards shoot. If it’s anything else, nature and a dash of manufacturing run its course, and it only takes a few days. And it's simple. You slot into place with a contract or you get the fuck out of dodge as quick as you can. Spacer’s Choice.

Not that he had a choice. Not that he tries to tell himself otherwise.

But it’s an old pattern he’s seen a dozen times by now, and he’s bored of it, bored of this town, bored of hiding his books in a place no one can find them. Fucking _bored._ Until she walks in. He hears about her before he sees her. The vestibules of a vicarage are surprisingly, or maybe not at all, a hotspot for gossip.

A puzzle piece in the wrong jigsaw. She was something out of a dream, apparently. Spacer’s gear, but _old_. And spotted head to toe in marauder gore from quite a tousle, but it doesn’t look natural on her. Neither does the shitty old pistol on her hip. Adrenaline. Suspicious, hackles raised, eyes bloodshot. It’s a miracle she wasn’t shot on sight.

It starts with a promise for zero trouble. It ends with the upheaval of Edgewater’s power structure and holding a hundred or so lives in her palm.

It ends with him.

His miracle, with a thousand strings attached, and a mirror with all the worst parts of himself staring back.

It’s a quick lesson, just how inconvenient she is.

* * *

At first, she hates his fucking guts. And it’s on principle, she thinks. Her life has been measured on breakneck first impressions as a matter of survival and everything he is and everything she _isn’t_ stands between them. That is, she's about as empty as the seventy long years she spent unconscious and hurtling through space and by the time she has two feet on this backwards colony she has no patience for a proprietous, preachy asshole.

“I don’t have any patience for a proprietous, preachy asshole.” she tells Parvati, after the woman has pulled her aside and left Maximillion DeSoto standing at his desk, a little red in the face and gripping his useless French book. The whisper she attempts is more like a hiss and it echoes across the vicarage ceiling like any old prayer.

"Well, I don't know if he's _all_ bad. He can be sweet. Why, just last week he-"

She doesn’t want to be rude, but she interrupts with a raised palm all the same. "Listen, I knew men like him back on Earth. It was practically crawling with 'em."

And Parvati's far too kind to say anything to the contrary, but the look she gets when she talks about being from Earth is a fine blend of bemused and unsure, with a sprinkle of horrified, and it’s been the standard response. It makes her feel a tad nuts.

"Vicar DeSoto might have a temper on him sometimes, but he… he's always _tried_ to be kind."

"Good. It's _kind_ of his job. Forget it. He’ll just slow me down.”

“He says he knows his way around a tossball stick and - well, that's news to me, but from what you've told me about this mad thing you're doing, you're gonna need all the bruisers you can get."

 _Damn it._ Parvati's right, of course. And also the only thing standing between her and the door and leaving him and this town in the dust.

"Ma'am, he wants out of Edgewater. He’s desperate. Let me, um, let me vouch for him.”

She narrows her eyes. “Why?”

“Why?” Parvati repeats, looking confused. “Because I trust him.”

“And so what?”

“Don’t… you trust me, Captain?”

The question truly jars her. And it’s not about the Vicar - even though he reads as a self-serving slimeball - it’s just that she hasn’t been looking at people straight since she got here. She’s barely days out of stasis and feels like an old relic. This isn’t her world and she’s been numb to it. Outside herself. It feels like a muted, crawling bad dream.

But Parvati is real. Has to be. Her brain can’t conjure something so sweet on its own. But it’s been barely forty-eight hours since they’d met, and she’s asking for trust. It would be unbelievable if Parvati wasn’t damn near the kindest soul she’s ever met.

Her snapshot judgement had been: Outcast. Kindred. Sweet like syrup. She hadn’t hesitated to welcome Parvati aboard when she asked. So she follows her gut. She listens to Parvati.

She looks at DeSoto and wonders if she'll eventually end up regretting her next words.

"Alright, preacher man. You're coming with us.”

She makes the deal.

And he smiles, something like relief, something awful smug.

It’s a quick lesson, just how inconvenient he is.

* * *

“I need that information.” He looks dead serious.

He holds out the ID cartridge she’d watched him pilfer off a desk at the back of the clinic when he thought nobody was watching. He’s not a good thief. She surveys the Groundbreaker Promenade to see if anybody has noticed; no one has, not under the the shrill of vendors, and heat, and The Lost Hope across the way was turning into a revolving door for an overworked, sweatlicked crew.

She quickly snatches the ID out of his hand, pockets it immediately. _“Fuck_ no.” she says, and tries to walk away but he steps in front of her path, hands out, appeasingly.

“Why not, exactly? Don’t tell me this is a matter of ethics,” he says accusingly. “I’ve seen how you operate.”

“I know how to pick my battles, Vicar.”

“You’re a glorified kleptomaniac, actually. I’ll wager you did worse on Earth. Worse than I’ve already seen you do.”

_I’ll wager it’ll take me one punch to knock fifty percent of your teeth out of your head, you slimy..._

She sniffs indifferently. Buried it deep and truly, even a single hint that she’s miffed at this presumption he has of her character. Mostly because it’s true. “You got a funny way of asking for favours.”

“I can’t do it alone.”

“Actually, you’re not doing it at all - people have seen us with you. I don’t want trouble."

Everything had gone to shit at record-breaking speed when they docked on the Groundbreaker. Ship detained by the bureaucrats on this - this hotbox. It was fucking sweltering and the sweat was starting to create a sticky layer between her skin and the cheap armour she’d peeled off a marauder, and it wanes on her composure as the Vicar keeps needling her. She needs a drink or five. She just wishes he'd shut up.

"Have you forgotten that our ship is impounded?”

“It happened a little over an hour ago, so no.”

She bristles at his tone. Insolent, even when he wants something and is supposed to be begging.

“And when they catch us, genius? Say goodbye to your ticket out of here, and good luck jumping ship when I make sure you’re blacklisted from here back to fucking Ear-”

“We can do it.”

“I don’t share your enthusiasm. _Even_ _with_ the Holo-shroud-thingo… surely there’s more than one way to get your book translated on Halcyon that we don’t have to risk incarceration for.”

The Vicar shakes his head. “He’s the only one who can do it. And think – perhaps they’ll have information on your lost colony? Was this not its sister ship?”

She pauses; frowns at him. There he goes again. When she told people she was a ninety-year-or-so-old space drifting colonist she’d received outright backlash, or was treated like an Adrina-Time junkie. She’s not sure if he’s taking the piss, but he looks earnest. It’s the first time anybody besides Phineas, for obvious reasons, has taken her past life and her casual nap in space seriously.

“I mean… what are the chances of that? Sorry, but I’m not getting arrested over something _that_ stupid on the offchance that I-”

“I’ll pay you.”

“Are you kidding me.”

“Oh no. This is no good…” she hears Parvati muttering off to the side, knowing what’s about to happen. Sweet as she is, Parvati’s got her captain down pat. She takes a tentative step back. Truth is, if it was Parvati asking she would have done it in a heartbeat. At least something good might come out of it. Ellie’s still watching the exchange with a neutral, healthy amount of curiosity.

The Vicar knows he’s onto something now. Even looks smug about it. 

"Thought I drained you of every last penny over the French book."

She sees his face screw up momentarily over the confusion of another Earth idiom and tries to remind herself to cool it on those.

“I'm good for it. Name your price,” he offers, voice low.

She chews on her lip, considering. “What’s it worth to you?”

He huffs out a breath. “My entire life’s purpose.”

“Lame. Also, a little dramatic.”

“Fine. Fucking, _fine._ Five-thousand bits.”

Not for the first time does she think that the word ‘fuck’ sounds mighty pretty coming out of his Vicarly mouth.

“Ten thousand,” she barters.

His jaw clenches and he grits out, _“Fine.”_

“Ten-thousand bits and your entire life’s purpose it is.”

They don’t shake. Mainly because they can barely stand looking at one another, let alone touching.

“What did I just sign up for.” Ellie doesn’t sound nearly as worried as she could be, but recalculating nonetheless.

“Just a casual felony and a misdemeanor or two.” She winks.

“Uh, Cap’n? You sure this is the best idea?” Parvati asks, her voice light so as to not insult anybody.

She melts, and not just from the shitting heat. “‘Course it's not. Don’t worry. Why don’t you go on ahead and have a look at the engines? Maybe see what the hell is wrong with this ship’s heating systems.”

“That’s a no-go, Captain. I’m here with you. We’ll get you to your scholar, DeSoto, sir.”

She salutes Parvati.

“Thank you,” the Vicar says.

“What did they mean, ‘on Earth’?” She hears Ellie ask, and zones out quick enough to miss whatever explanation Parvati has for the sawbones.

She has a theft to plan.

They speak in whispers, biding their time between the guards' rotations. Parvati’s somewhere close by; back up for if their plan goes to shit and they need a quick distraction. Ellie’s leaning against the railing, side-eyeing the door. An extra set of eyes. 

She slips into the pattern easily. They learn the guards' movements first – who is where, and when – and find a back door that’s sloppily patrolled. They don’t switch from their route, falling into step, but it’s a short one.

“We’ll have a window of about five minutes to get the door open and get inside. Phineas says the Holo-Shroud will last about twenty minutes. We’ll do it in ten and make sure we’re in and out before the patrol makes it’s second round. You sure you can hack the terminal in that time?”

“I’m sure.”

“You really wanna do this?” she asks him, more curious than anything, as they scope out the security office together. “Doesn’t this go against _your_ ‘moral code’ as a ‘man of the cloth’, or whatever it is you call yourself?”

“This is all in the name of a good cause.”

The more she learns about him the more it strikes her that he’s climbed the ladder rungs and has forgotten where he comes from, that he likes using fancy words and keeping his nails clean, likes to pretend he doesn't have a past and that he’s stepped on heads trying to get away from it. He's wedged somewhere between intolerable and dangerous.

“And what cause is that?”

He side-eyes her. “Do you actually care?”

She shrugs. “No, guess not. Just hard for me to imagine there being a single selfless bone in your body.”

“Then like recognises like, Captain.”

She scoffs. “I’m _nothing_ like you.”

“Please. You’re exceedingly transparent. Might I remind you that I served in a prison, and I know a criminal when I see one."

She rolls her eyes. "Spare me your insights, Vicar "

"Am I wrong? You’re well-versed in larceny and you observe the world around you like a common enemy. Not to mention you’re breaking the law this very moment, and only for the prospect of bits.”

“Anybody ever tell you that when you talk it’s like the worst kind of white noise?” she snaps at him. Admitting that he's right her makes her feel all kinds of nauseous, but he’s… not wrong. The only honest job she’d ever had was bagging frozen dinners and cigarettes at her local bodega, and that was just to keep appearance as a functioning member of a crumbling society.

Maybe she could say that stealing became a necessity. Not a game. It wasn’t fun, oh no. Heists weren’t fun to plan. And she didn't _practice_ at the bodega, not at all.

And if her boss ever asked about the missing cash from the safe (or the expensive watch that’d been left on his desk, and why the security cameras went haywire around the same time) she’d point the other way and enjoy the b-grade Chinese takeaway instead of the c-grade for a night, and call herself a survivor instead of a greedy criminal.

“How reliable is this scholar of yours, anyway?” she mutters, turning the conversation around like a revolving door, unwilling to give him the satisfaction.

She sees a muscle jump in his jaw. “Reliable enough.”

The guard rounds the corner and Ellie gives the signal, and they chart a different course, passing said guard with barely a glance before quickly zipping around the corner. Ellie signals again: _You’re clear._ She hacks the door, easy as pie, and they don their disguises. She may be an idiot, but she’s still a good thief, no matter how flashy the locks get.

“Let’s make it quick.”

* * *

She shares a drink with her new crew and watches from the sidelines. Parvati is tinkering with something and sticking to mock-apple juice. Ellie smokes. She notices the discernable gaps between them, the careful paces. Empty seats. Ellie is especially forthright about sticking to the outskirts and hard pressed to maintain this ‘lone wolf’ status of hers, but still has a drink in her hand. It’s a sort of christening after the shortcomings experienced so far. They’re finally off Groundbreaker. A fresh crew.

She doesn’t even want to know what Roseway has in store for them.

Max and Felix are in the throes of a one-sided debate that starts with tossball and ends in religion, because of course. When it does, Ellie joins, mainly because she likes to see the Vicar get all hot and bothered. The kid questions it, and the Vicar is preaching his OSI’s metaphorical Grand Architect and Universal Equation and yadda yadda yadda, and Felix just scratches his head and pretends to nod. He’s got respect in his eyes though. He respects Max, to a degree. She doesn’t get it.

“What do you think about it?” Felix asks her.

“What do I think about what? The OSI? We didn’t have it on earth, but we had everything else under the sun. It was a two for one, sometimes.”

“Earth had no unified belief system.” The Vicar says this with… judgement in his voice.

She bites her tongue. Because they’ve been drinking, and they don’t need to get into it with liquor to fuel the flames. It would just end in a screaming match, one has been on the tip of their tongues for days now thanks to the close quarters and Groundbreaker’s heat.

She’s never been one for religion, least of all one that told her that her destiny was predetermined. Never been one to belittle another for their beliefs either. It’s just… it used to be that believing in the universe meant believing in freedom, of living and dying and choosing what happens in between, or some shit like that. Now it was just another way to control people. This shitsucking world is just as bad as the one she left. Only a little… crazier. More bells and whistles and just as many sad, desperate people. And he’s obsessed with it – obsessed with finding answers – and she _hates_ that he still believes in it even when he can’t _see_ all of it. The Plan just seemed like old garbage wrapped in new shiny tinfoil.

The Vicar doesn’t see his history for what it is. He doesn’t understand how culture has shaped the old world. The Board has shaped his, completely.

“Boss, you’re _really_ from Earth, right - that isn’t just a joke?”

“It’s not a joke. If it is, it’s a bad one.”

“Still not convinced you haven’t just hit your head real bad.” Ellie says.

“That a professional opinion?”

“Just a sceptical one. I’d advise not advertising this shit out loud on the colonies. People will think you’re a loon.”

“They probably wouldn’t be wrong. Look, guys, I’m not lying. I know you all think I’m crazy, but-”

“No, ma’am! You’re doing an honourable thing, aren’t you?”

Parvati is genuine, even with how little she knows, how little they all know. If she’s telling the truth, she’s a relic of the past from a lost voyage, woken against her will by a mad scientist type who just happens to be a colony-wide criminal, to a purpose she never asked for. That is, taking down their corporate overlords.

Of course she sounds nuts. They had no reason to think otherwise. No reason to trust her outside of the free bed she provided, so long as they aim and shoot where she tells them to.

She takes a long drink and makes a face, mulling over that.

She’s still mulling it over, long after she falls into her cot. She stares at the ceiling, chewing hangnails, tensing restless legs.

It’s bad luck on his part that she was the dimwit Phineas decided to pull out of cryo. She hadn’t been what he expected, or needed. She’d led what she considered to be a petty, unexceptional life on Earth. On all accounts being left brain-dead and floating through space was retribution in itself. And while killing was a hurdle she had _not_ been prepared for, she’d done enough bad shit in her life that the first time she squeezed the trigger and shot to kill it had felt like checking another box, and she stopped feeling queasy about it quick enough.

She doesn’t belong to this place and yet wherever she sets foot, they’re already knee-deep in shit, and she’s the one digging them out. _The people on the Hope need you,_ Phineas says, like he’d birthed her, given her some almighty purpose. And she doesn’t care a wink for the people still asleep on the Hope, but she’s all they have, too. This obligation makes her feel itchy.

She doesn’t sleep much that night.

* * *

“ _We’re now in orbit above Roseway, Captain.”_

“Thank you, ADA,” she says from the kitchen, still getting caught off guard by the title. She’s the first one in the mess hall the next morning, drinking her second cup of brew - a little sweeter than she likes, buzzes in her like a good narcotic. Coffee might be the only thing she misses about Earth. The cigarettes were better, too. The stuff here just made her feel pukey.

She thought real hard for a second. Coffee and cigarettes? Was that really the only thing she wept for?

Maybe she missed that stray cat that used to come and sit on her windowsill sometimes. It was a cute, crotchety little thing. Used to fend off all the rats in the building.

_My life was fucking sad, huh._

Felix is the next one in. “Hey Boss,” he says, respect resonating in his voice when he speaks to her, too.

Yeesh. Kid needs some better role models.

She salutes him good-naturedly as he makes himself comfortable at the table.

And then the Vicar walks in.

He heads straight for the fridge, sticks his head in and rummages about, ignoring her even though she's but a few feet away.

She can’t help herself.

“You know it’s all garbage, right?” she says. He looks a little caught off guard, halfway through adjusting his collar and minding his own business and strutting through the ship like he’s made a home in it.

“And what are we contemplating today, Captain?” he drawls, likely knowing where this is going. “Rare for you to be more than monosyllabic this early in the morning.”

_Asshole._

“Just thinking on this Plan the universe has set out for you.”

“And what insight, Law forbid, have you gained in your ruminations?”

“I think the universe doesn’t give a flying fuck.”

She hears Felix audibly hold his breath, eyes sweeping between them. It's no secret, the animosity between them. They’ve dealt with it thus far by ignoring the hell out of each other and keeping it civil for the sake of the small space they have to share. But she’s feeling testy. Maybe it’s the prolonged cryogenic sleep or the fact that everything and everyone she’d ever known was either dead or dying. Either way. The sight of him pisses her off today.

“Of _course_ it doesn’t,” he says, exasperated. “It would make little sense to meddle with the preordained Plan it has set out for us.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What _did_ you mean?”

“There isn’t - there _can’t_ be some _preordained Plan._ And anyone that's selling that tripe just wants you quiet. Life is - life is chaos.”

“Life is _not_ chaos. Chaos is what unravels us. You sound like a Philosophist.” He sounds accusatory.

“Philosophism, Scientism - it’s all the same to me.”

“If your story is to be believed and you’re weeks out of Earth’s archaic belief systems, I’m not surprised.”

“And what’s so profound about slapping a proper noun on the universe and using it to gyp people of their self-governance?”

“Many people take great comfort in knowing their future is predetermined.” he argues.

“The Board takes great comfort in keeping people in their place too, huh?”

He sighs in annoyance, but doesn't disagree. “The Board is another matter entirely. For most, the Grand Plan alleviates the struggle and pain that often comes with choice.”

She snorts. “Because you’re just the _epitome_ of contentment, aren’t you?” When he does nothing but look mean, she keeps going. “Life is just blood and guts and dirt and you’re just supposed to enjoy what you can. You ever just sit back and _enjoy_ yourself, Vicar?”

“Not recently,” he mutters, eyeing her over the bottle of mock-apple juice he swigs.

“Not _ever._ I think you’re just looking for something to help you sleep better at night.”

“Aren’t we all?” he shoots right back. “And how well do _you_ sleep, Captain?”

“Pretty fucking well,” she all but snarls, even though it’s a bald-faced lie. “And trust me, this ‘Enlightenment’ you’re looking for, it’s gonna get you nowhere. Nowhere but sad and miserable and old too soon.”

He contemplates her for a moment. When they bicker, usually it fills the void and keeps her on her toes. But this time, she’s hit a nerve. He looks all serious and high and mighty and ready to take a chunk out of her. Snarl for snarl.

Then his hackles ease back. They both remember they still have an audience, and Felix is watching them intently, picking at Saltuna bits and sucking juice off his thumb like it’s the best show he’s seen in a long time.

“You seem to have a lot on your mind today.” Max says, finding his habitually calm derision. He tugs on his collar though, like it’s stifling. “Care for a confessional?”

“Eat me.” she spits.

“As always, I enjoy our illuminating discussions.”

“Fuck you.”

He heads back to his cabin, his backwards wave dismissive.

“ _Phew_ ,” Felix whistles. “Remind me not to get on your bad side, Boss. Thought his head was gonna pop right off his shoulders.”

Still feeling the heat of the argument on the back of her neck, she gives herself a bit of a shake so as to not turn her foul mood onto the kid and jokes, “I’ll have to try harder next time, I guess.”

* * *

“Heard you and Vicar DeSoto have at it again this morning.” It’s a question, open-ended. Parvati doesn’t pry. She thinks about playing ignorant, scanning the dead streets of Roseway, the smell of rotting carcasses that litter the street, the unknown that awaits them beyond the gates and hoping Parvati just goes away.

She’d left him on the ship. He hadn’t complained. That, or she hadn’t given him time to.

She acknowledges Parvati, shrugging.

Night is approaching and the long hall of the day ahead of them looms over her. She’s still questioning this mad thing, sucking on the tail end of a cigarette that makes her feel ill. Ellie and Felix, they’re already taking up the extra beds. It’s been a long day of hunting and close calls - she isn’t a leader, she’s put them in danger more than once.

“I like to think your conversations keep him on his toes, before the yelling starts. I think you do him good.”

Parvati leans against the wall beside her, glancing up at the stars, breathing deep.

“We don’t make good company,” she agrees.

“You make just fine company. You’ll see eye to eye someday, and it’ll only be uphill from there. Don’t worry, Captain.”

She turns to Parvati, something unravelling at the title.

Because again, it’s not about the Vicar. And maybe Parvati knows that.

Numb to it. Everything. Autopilot. Going along with this story long enough to get a ship, but she’s still going, going, and she doesn’t fucking know _why._

She’s not a hero, she’s not even a remotely good person, and instinct is telling her to say ‘fuck you’ to it all and just try to make an unassuming life for herself - but if what Phineas says is true, this colony is on its way out anyway and she’s already missed the best of it. It’s fucked, and it needs help. And he’s the only one trying. He needs her.

“I’m not a good person, Pav.” she admits, even though no one asked.

“I don’t believe that’s true, Cap’n.” Parvati says kindly.

She shakes her head. “You don’t know me well enough. You don’t know the truth.”

“What truth is that?”

“That I haven’t done a single worthwhile thing in my life,” it’s a relief to say it to somebody, finally. To tell her truth. “And I don’t care.”

For some reason, it tastes wrong.

“Sure you do,” Parvati insists.

“Parvati, I’m sure it’s just because you're incapable of being judgemental, but I think that if you knew _half_ the shit I’d done on Earth you-”

“You took me out of Edgewater when you might have left me easy enough - and why did you do that? Because I asked? And the Vicar, too, and Felix and Ellie. We don’t know what we’re doing any better than you but you’ve still given us _something_ , haven’t you?”

“That’s… just because I like you, Parvati.”

“Look, I ain’t by no stretch of the meaning worldly, but seems to me like bad people usually don’t like others and don’t do kind things just for the sake of it. Unless, you aren’t?”

No. She likes Parvati. Better than most. The others, too. She might have her rows with the Vicar, but even feeling that anger is a precious gift. It’s better than feeling nothing.

“Phineas wants us to save Halcyon. He expects me to save the rest of the people on the Hope because they _mean something_ but I - I wasn’t even supposed to be on that ship.”

“It sounds to me like you have a past, just like anyone else. But not many people get to have a second life, and - and you mean something _now_. That must be awful scary.”

She exhales and - and it makes so much sense she could laugh. She was fucking _petrified._ “I guess it is,” she says, through a tight throat, trying not to convey as much emotion as she actually feels. She finally admits it to herself. _Terrified of caring. Terrified of trying, and watching it all burn anyway. Just plain fucking terrified._

Parvati smiles kindly at her. “Being scared is a good sign, I think. I was scared when I left Edgewater. That’s why I knew I was probably doing the right thing.”

“I’m not very good at doing the right thing.”

“Are you going to stop trying?”

She doesn’t know the answer to that. Not just yet. “I can’t promise this isn’t all gonna go to shit. Maybe you don’t want to be here for that.”

“I can guarantee that us stowaways probably don’t care to be anywhere but.” Parvati puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezes. “And who knows. Maybe we’ll do it. Maybe we can change the colony.”

She doesn’t quite share the sentiment, but feels the panic burst and subside, just a little bit, under the strength of her positivity.

“Hold onto that optimism,” she tells Parvati, returning the gesture. “We’re gonna need it.”

**Author's Note:**

> hellooo, I don't have a priest kink, just a DeSoto kink. and it WILL get kinky ;) these are gonna be shorter chapters, more character interaction between the main plot than anything. thanks for reading <3


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